Political Notebook: Oct. 27

Political briefs box with Number to Know, Fact Check and Quotes from the Candidates.

Number to Know

6-4: Height of Abraham Lincoln, the tallest president in U.S. history. Barack Obama is 6 feet 1 inch.

Fact Check: Obama and taxes

Republicans are misrepresenting Barack Obama's tax proposals right down to the bitter end. New radio ads from the John McCain campaign and a TV spot from the pro-Republican group Let Freedom Ring are targeting voters nationwide with some of the same tax deceptions we've been hearing all fall, rolled in a bundle and flung through the airwaves. One of the radio ads features Hank Williams Jr., the other Florida Gov. Charlie Crist. But new packaging doesn't make the charges any less false.

- Taxes wouldn't have gone up on "families" making as little as $42,000 under the budget resolution passed last spring, as the Crist ad says. Try $90,000 for a typical family of four. And anyway, that measure doesn't at all resemble what Obama's actually proposing to do.

- The Let Freedom Ring ad claimed that Obama has "voted to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire," meaning "our income taxes will actually go up." But Obama only voted to let some of the tax cuts expire, and at any rate nobody's taxes are going up as a result of that vote. The group yanked this ad off the air rather than try to defend it.

- Echoing a recent McCain theme, Crist says, "McCain knows that people don't want to 'spread the wealth,' " condemning Obama's use of the phrase when he talked to Joe the Plumber. Actually, McCain has supported taxing high earners more than low earners. Not so long ago McCain said, "Wealthy people can afford [to pay] more." Obama's tax plan would "spread the wealth" more than McCain's, but it's not as though McCain wants to do away with the progressive tax system we currently have.

- FactCheck.org

Quotes from the Candidates

"We're doing fine. We are very competitive in many of the battleground states." – What Sen. John McCain said Sunday on “Meet the Press.”

"John McCain suggested that he would be the one to change George Bush's policies. It's like Robin getting mad at batman. John McCain hasn't been a maverick. He's been a sidekick.” – What Sen. Barack Obama said Saturday night at a rally in New Mexico.